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Downes writes on what is faddish and what is passing on the internet - might not agree with everything , but good discussion points on future trends

Description: It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after speech, thousands more before the printing press was invented, and a few hundred more for the telegraph to arrive. Today, new ways of relating are constantly created and a new communication medium emerges every time someone creates a web application-a Flickr here, a Twitter there. How can we use new media to foster the kinds of communication and community we desire in education? This presentation will discuss both successful and unsuccessful attempts to integrate emerging technologies into the classroom to create a rich virtual learning environment.

John Beasley-Murray's user page on Wikipedia where he describes creating a writing assignment for his students and the ups and downs of the exercise.

"Which of the following two assignments is more likely to engage high school students and inspire them to learn something? 1.  Write a paper about contemporary US war veterans. 2.  Create a multimedia resource of news feeds, archival video, student interviews with veterans, document how you accomplished it, and share your findings with the world."

Want one :)

My old elearning mentor writes about recent attacks on connectivism and why they don't hold up.

"Australian researchers have discovered information is best processed either orally or in writing, but not both ways simultaneously. Thus, PowerPoint presentations can backfire when what's on the screen is the same as what the speaker is saying, because audience attention is automatically divided."

This article defines transliteracy as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks" and opens the debate with examples from history, orality, philosophy, literature, and ethnography.

"Optimal learning occurs when students are active participants in their own learning, rather than passive recipients of teacher-delivered content. For this to be effective, students really need to think about their learning. I worked with a group of teachers recently who felt their young students were not capable of writing meaningful reflections for their end of semester reports. That might be true. But only if reflection and meta-cognition are not integral parts of the learning in their classes."

Archive your tweets to your server. Open source app. Doesn't talk about being able to select for e.g. hashtags but may be possible to write into the code?

Copyright, stealing, tribute, shoulders of giants. What is the nature of creativity. Lennon writes his take on musical heritage.

Where to find Audrey Watters writing on Ed Tech now she's left ReadWriteWeb.

Gen Y students using more Web2.0 than older students but generally in passive ways e.g. reading blogs but not writing them.

Visualise a musical mash-up. Rendered in html5 & css3. See also background at http://themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2011/05/12/

"After preparing their papers, students attached an interactive cover sheet on which they raised questions about the paper they had just completed, thereby identifying the specific areas for feedback."

Hey, I worked with Sue Bloxham at St Martins. She's a great teacher in academic development. I think the 2nd last comment is useful too. The first ones suggest this process will be too hard for students. But we want them to be critical thinkers and they need to make that analysis of their own work too so provide the teaching to support them.

Course site created using Posterous as the backbone and including Twitter, Scribd, etc.  Created since the teacher doesn't like Blackboard!

read-write-web reviews Wave

Kete is open source software that you can use to create online areas for collaboration for your community. Write topics and upload images, audio, video, documents. Discuss them all. Link them together. It's been called a "relational wiki" and " a mashup between content management and knowledge managment". It's a fun way to get things done.

OU key skills paper an an example of some tools available in their Moodle.

"Our first year Biological Sciences students have just completed their key skills course. This consists of two modules, one delivered in Term 1 (scientific literature databases, Google Reader & RSS, intellectual property, Google Docs collaborative writing,..."